


jane's great idea

by thehedgewitches



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Timeline, F/F, i dont even know whos getting together but its gonna be gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 11:09:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13075620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehedgewitches/pseuds/thehedgewitches
Summary: I had a bunch of snippets from a while back that I meshed together in hopes that it could form a somewhat coherent story.Basically I wanted Marina to have been a hedge witch and go to brakebills with everyone and be the same age as them. But I also wanted her canon story to still be a possible timeline. So I made her a child prodigy. i dunno man.





	jane's great idea

**jane:**  henry do you remember that student you let in before she’d finished high school?*

**dean fogg:**  yeah. marina andrieski. that was a mistake. i had to expel her 3 months before she graduated. why?

**jane:**  she was talented…

**dean fogg:**  she lacked character. 

**jane:**   total shit disturber. right. but hear me out. she’s the same age as they are. what if we went back and let her grow up a bit before we let her in this time? what if we admitted her the same year as quentin and julia?

**dean fogg** : i suppose, if allowed to mature in a more controlled manner, her skills could give prove to be an asset

**jane:**  great, let’s do it

* * *

 

Marina sat in the back row of the exam room and took a deep breath. She looked out at the frantically writing students and exhaled evenly. It had been five years since the last time she had sat in this room and yet it still felt familiar. It felt like she had spent countless hours, countless days scribbling away at pages to get a passing grade in this very desk, and yet she knew the sense of nostalgia for this room must be misplaced. In actuality she had only ever spent 3 hours in this room. She had wandered off one day from her 11th grade field trip and next thing she knew she was standing on the campus of brakebills university. A magical prodigy, they called her. A grad school accepting a student her age was unheard of, but her raw aptitude had triggered some magical sensor, and they just  _ had  _ to test her. She’d written an exam in this very room, and failed. She woke up the next morning and remembered nothing. But the next week she dreamed of a bee and a key, and a few nights later of a beautiful and complex maze, and then soon of a man named henry, and then of a test. Slowly things came back and slowly marina became aware of the hints of magic that hung in the things around her. That was 5 years ago. Since then magic had become her everything. She had been so keen to fervently ace this exam and prove to herself and the school that she belonged here. But now that she sat watching the panicked focus of the young adults around her, she felt embarrassed that this had ever been her ultimate goal.  “ _what the fuck do these kids know?”_  she thought to herself.  They were no less desperate than the hedges she’d been running with on the streets.

 

She looked down at her exam. She was supposed to copy down the entire first chapter of a book she had read when she was 12. “no thank you.” she said quietly to her test. She placed both her hands on the exam booklet and closed her eyes in concentration. The area on top of her desk started to feel thick, and heavy. She gently sifted the air with her fingers until it turned from heavy to stringy. Eyes still closed, she gently explored the web of enchantments around the booklet until she found a loose end, and then meticulously she unraveled it, weaving it in and out of tangles and untying several knots. When she was done the magic simply dissolved and she was left with a perfectly normal stack of papers in front of her. She picked up her pen and wrote “you passed” in large thick letters. 

* * *

Julia chewed on the end of her pencil. Her test had covered a variety of obscure history questions, some high-level symbolic logic problems, and an entire page of hieroglyphics that she didn't even recognize but had to translate into a story in modern English.  
  
She didn't feel confident in her understanding of the glyphs, so she tried to increase the legitimacy of her response by putting a hidden message in it. If you read it normally, it was a story about a woman who took a trip to a mountain and heard the voice of god. If you read only the first letter of every word, it was a bible verse she had always enjoyed.  
  
Ecclesiastes 1:17-18. "Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief."  
  
This was the strangest exam she had ever taken and she hoped at the very least that someone would appreciate the irony.  
  
She was just finishing up creating her own crossword puzzle. She wrote in the last clue and then the exam went blank. Satisfied that her exam was finished she finally took the opportunity to look around the room. It seemed that more than half of the students initially present were missing and many of the ones that remained weren't writing anymore either. There was a tattooed kid whose desk was surrounded with water glasses. And at the back a copper-haired girl in a flannel button-up and grey sweater was fast asleep with her head on her desk. _"Shit",_  she immediately felt anxious that she had taken too long. She thought she saw a boy that looked like Quentin but some girl’s big curly hair was blocking her view of him. At least they both seemed to be writing still.

 

A blonde girl two rows up was fiddling with what looked like a large glass marble. But no, it couldn't be glass because now she was pinching it into a shape. It was a horse, she had made a horse.   
The blonde set the glass creation down on the table and it pranced around of its own accord. Julia had to make a conscious effort to keep her mouth from falling open in surprise. That was magic. Real fucking magic. The girl watched the little horse trot from one side of the desk to the other, and then she scooped it up, crumpled in her fist, and started the whole process over again. Julia rested her chin in her hand in an effort to look as relaxed as possible, but she didn't once look away from that glass marble until the examiner spoke. They had passed the written exam.

* * *

 

Marina had passed her practical quite easily. She was asked to perform some magic and so she did. She started by changing the colour of the desk, and then she created a small fireball and deftly tossed it between her hands. She probably could have burned the whole fucking room down, but you don't show your hand on your first turn. She was quiet, and polite, and did her best to ignore the way Dean Fogg spoke to her like she had wronged him, she did her best to ignore the fact that all of this felt eerily familiar.

“Your physical magic is rather well-developed. You seem to have matured quite a bit since I saw you last"   
  
She wanted to say "Of course I fucking did, I was a high school student the last time I was mystically led here."   
But instead she smiled sweetly and dipped her head in acknowledgement.   
  
"Marina." dean fogg said to her as she was heading to her dorm. "I know you've been running with some hedges since we last met. I'm willing to overlook that on the condition that you don't bring their ideologies on to my campus."   
  
"I'll do my best, sir."

 

“Welcome to Brakebills.” There was no enthusiasm in his voice.

* * *

  
  


“Julia’s here, I’m going to let her in.” Quentin got up from the couch from where he was chatting with Eliot and moved towards the door. The physical kids were known for their ragers, and the first of the year was always especially fun. Any new physical kids were required to get through the enchanted front door themselves, but Julia had been sorted into knowledge and so was exempt from the task.

 

She stood outside the physical kids cottage. “Jeez Quentin hurry up.” She mumbled under her breath.

 

“What’s up, sweetheart? Can't pick a lock?”

 

Julia flinched and turned to see the copper-haired girl who’d fallen asleep at her desk on exam day.

Julia wanted to say “fuck you and your condescending tone.” But instead she just huffed. “It's a physical kids thing, some hazing thing, you have to…” she started to explain, gesturing at the sign. But the other first-year brushed past her and went straight to the door. She let her hand hover over the doorknob and made a motion as if she was coaxing something invisible from the keyhole. She paused to look over her shoulder. Julia could barely handle the half-smirk, but Marina turned back to the door and made a quick motion as if she was twisting a doorknob. Julia heard a click and the other girl straightened up and opened the door.

Julia's jaw dropped. “After you.” She said, holding the door open for Julia. The redhead arched an eyebrow and then smiled. A real, genuine smile. She wasn't gloating, no. This was a girl that just genuinely loved magic tricks.

Julia's face softened. She extended a hand. “Julia.” She said gently.

“Marina.” 

 

And then Quentin was in the doorway, looking very confused. “What the fuck.” He said, looking at the open door with furrowed eyebrows. “Wait, did you--” He started to ask, looking at Julia. But she shook her head and pointed at Marina.

“She picked the lock.”

“What the fuck.” Whined Quentin. “That's not supposed to work. I tried that!”

“That’s because I didn’t just pick the lock.” Marina said as she was walking past Quentin, so closely he had to step aside to avoid her hitting him. “I picked the enchantment on the lock, and  _ then _  I picked the lock.” And then she disappeared into the crowd of people inside.

 

“Who was that?” Quentin asked, seeming mildly distressed. “It took me and Alice 3 hours…”

Julia raised her hands and shrugged. “Marina.” She knew the answer seemed insufficient, and the whole situation amused her greatly. She grabbed a dumbfounded Quentin by the arm. “C’mon, Q. Let’s party.”

**Author's Note:**

> k guys what you wanna see in the next chapter? i'm thinkin some party games. we'll get an intro to kady. whatchu think?


End file.
